How will the hotel of the future look like?

When discussing the possible scenarios of the hotel of the future, the macro trends can be summarized with three keywords: Experience, Uniqueness and Augmented Services.

The need to create valuable experiential tourism products is a fact. The travelers of the future do not just want to “visit” a place, but rather to become part of it through authentic, better if exclusive, experiences that connect them with the cultural heritage of the territory. The hospitality sector, in clear contrast with a past in which the hotels part of a chain had the same appearance, must be able to customize both the interior design and all services offered in order to reflect the character of the local reality. In a hotel in Venice, for example, the traveler might enjoy finding references to the local artisan realities, just think of Murano glass or damask handmade fabrics; while in Norway, and we can cite the example of the very recent Svart resort built at the foot of the Svartisen glacier, the pile-dwelling architecture was designed in a circular shape to give the guest the feeling of being “inside” the lake, literally immersed in the landscape, as well as providing a 360 ° panorama.

Even the furnishing concepts of a receptive structure are being redefined, going increasingly towards a concept of “home away from home” where the interior takes on high levels of personalization. Hotel rooms become a showcase in which artists exhibit their works or are themselves a “work of art”. The furnishings are, in fact, often created to measure in collaboration with designers and architects who conceive them, inspired by the philosophy of the “statement piece”, with the aim of creating a distinctive environment that can give a truly unique flavor to the guest’s stay.

The ultimate services dedicated to the guest comfort speak the language of Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality. In addition to providing increasingly personalized and on-demand services that are just a click away, such as the access to films and video games or the booking of a bicycle, theatre tickets or any other experience, or the ability to set special chromotherapy, temperature, home scents, etc. features, some hotels have started experimenting with much more “creative” projects. In London, for example, you can drink whiskey while, thanks to a 3D viewer, you are transported to the places where it was handcrafted; while in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, thanks to a collaboration with Nissan, guests have at their disposal slippers that “park” themselves as, just by pressing a button, they return in place.

Let us remember, however, that if the ultimate services of the “hotel of the future” seem more than ever linked to technological and artistic avant-gardes, their correct implementation remains now more than ever linked to the human factor and to the ability of contract design companies, and their trusted craftsmen, to make furniture or systems carefully crafted to work at perfection.